Maybe one of these days I'll be traveling up in your area again. My wife's sister lives in Lansing, and there is a summer guitar teaching workshop in Ann Arbor I've attended in years past. I'd like to meet you guys - and the Laminator.

What is it with you Michigan guys and starting so early? Virtually all the other Regionals start at LEAST an hour later, and most of them don't have to account for being on the Western edge of the Eastern time zone, so anybody traveling East to your regional lose an additional hour.

I might be able to go, but I might be better off going to Owensboro even though it's further, since they start later. It really is excessively early for anyone trying to travel to your regional.

We just start at 10 so we can get done at a reasonable time. figure 5 hrs of swiss and 2 hrs of top 4 means it will be at least 6pm before it is over and many people have to drive home after so it makes it where they can get home at a reasonable time. And yes that means that unless you come out the day before and crash somewhere it can make for a long day, but the length of the day doesn't change if we cahnge the start time it just means you don't get home until later.

Also at least 1 booster of prize support per player will be drafted and winner will get a gencon badge.

_________________When I left you I was but the learner . . . now I am the master.

we will run the appropriate number (meaning probably 5 rds 17-32 players)

We will have at least a boostah per player to draft from for prize support. A case for players 5-16 to draft from and then other boosters for 17 plus (depending on number of people) to draft from. 2/3/4 will also have boosters to draft from as well and the winner will take home the top prize of a badge.

_________________When I left you I was but the learner . . . now I am the master.

The Michigan Regional was a lot of fun and got to see a lot of people we knew and meet some we did not. I played 4-1 in Swiss and was seeded 2nd for the top 4. Paired against Eric Larson who was my only loss from earlier.

Game 1 - Played against a Senate Commando squad with 2 Rodian Diplomats, Argus, Mothma, 4 Commando's etc. Played my map Rhen Var Citadel and used another Scout and BFH for reinforcements. Both sides of this map are open space and clear all the way across the board. He set up a Commando plus an uggie in the little room straight down one of these alleys but with 2 doors of access. I was thinking about trying to open one of the doors if he opened the interior door thinking he was safe and firing with a scout at his commando but this would have allowed him to death shot my R7 who was opening the outer door. For a reason (maybe first game nerves) I couldn't explain, he opened the interior door and blew open the exterior door with the uggie in the early part of the round. I then had 2 scouts that could shoot down a line from safety and cloaked at his Commando. Altough they were only 10 pt. shots I had 8 total shots to hit I think 5. Figured I had to try and hit on all 4 from the first scout and finished him with the last and he had no one to death shot. He couldn't believe he had opened the door and seemed to know he was in trouble after that. I steadily advanced and had scouts at multiple locations with shots to the center of the board as I advanced leaving him no way to get to Gambit without being shot up. We met in the middle and I had continued to whittle his Commando's down until it was over. 3 point win without losing much.

Game - 2 Played Eric and his large IG-86 squad with like 6 of them plus whorm 12 total mouse droids thanks to Lobot and Gha Nacht. Played his map and I chose another Scout (should have taken the Bounty Hunter with his flamethrower. His map iss theTheed map and he advanced quickly from the right to the center while I tried to pick lines from where I could shoot him inside. Being badly outactivated he had most if not all IG's still to activate after I was finished. I started to pick off his mouse wal with scouts and he wondered if he was going to lose the game thinking I had the advantage. I did not see how as he still outactivated me and I could not advance inside the Gambit zone because of his filling the room and being able to pick off my mouse droids that were necessary to help spread the commander effects. When we went to time I had the Jereel and 2 scouts left and he was asarded a 3 point win. The reason he thought I had it won early was he believed I could simply get a scout killed and his deaths shots would kill the shooting Ig-86 droid. I pointed out this was incorrect as the scouts can only do 40 damage on their shot and that is not enough to kill a full health IG.

Game 3- Played Laura and her Garm, Dodonna, 3 Jedi Hunter Vong, Dash squad. I used the CIO to cancel Dodonna's advantage and a Mando Trooper and won my map roll. Naturally her squad was in trouble with so many shooters and with no Jedi for the JH's to terrorize. As we advanced I had her outactivated and with no targets that Dash could target and I picked off her people as we went. I set up long shots down the shooting alley and killed some uggies and an R7 she had brought in for a Reserves roll in round 1. Weadvanced to the center and I again was sure to have people coming to the center from 3 alley's so I could shoot her from most any angle. She made it in finally suffering some losses and with so many shots simply could not keep from dying quickly with some of my shotters critting making the VCA rolls not as effective. She brought down Garm and Dodonna to shoot it out (kudos to you for not hiding) and it was over after that. I could have tracked them down with still plenty of time left but this ended the game. 3 point win.

Game 4 - Played my closest win of the day against Tony Mullins. He won map roll (Ruined Base) and was using a NR squad comprised of Wedge, Mara, Dodonna, Jaina, Talon Karrde, Ganner, an R7 and some uggies. I used another Gunsmith and CIO to cancel Dodonna. With 3 overriders this really helped and Tony thought made the difference in the game. WE bot got to first round gambit with a closed door between us. I was trying to advance from different ways and he was piling his forces outside the door (by the turbolifts) ready to levitate anyone anywhere. I managed to get the door open to his hallway opened inthe security station from way off with ovverride and began to try to shoot out after I had outactivated him. He made some big saves with Ganner that would have almost killed him he avoided 50 damage from a hit and crit from a scout. He had Jaina going around the opposite way and decided to levitate Mara to my troops inthe security office. she killed a scout and he hurt her back with the death shot. He ran her back out to get away from some scouts I had coming up in the rear. In like the 4th round he brought her back with Talon Karrde right behind to cancel my twins and death shots. He had him where he could be seen down the long corrider in the middle of the map. From way back in the rear I decided to take a shot with my captain and hit Talon with one which he failed to evade. I then came around the corner with a scout and based him hitting both rolls to kill Talon. With his Disruptive gone I had a great chance against Mara now. He managed to chase down my captain the next round and kill him but I made it away with Jereel keeping far enough ahead that he could catch him with Jaina. I killed Mara after she killed a scout and by now he had hardly any Hp left on Ganner. I had collected Gambit in rounds 5 and 6 while we were trading kills and he had not. I was up like 105-89 and Brad was going to let us play another round but it was obvious that Tony could not kill enough points to win and indeed would have lost Ganner with another round of play. 2 point win for me to go to 3-1.

Game 5 - Played the Exar Kun, Ravan, Bandon squad that was tearing up people all day. I brouhgt in a Quartermaster to help wiht attack rols against high defenses and also one who could fight Jedi and possibly parry their attacks. I won map roll and we began. I ha not faced this squad and was impressed by how effective it was. I advanced from many ways as usual to make it hard to come after me from one way and to make it where I could shoot from many different angles. He made a quck kill early TE in with Kun and killing a scout who hit him back with a single shot. I though I was in real trouble as I know he has 180 HP and I was bearely going to scratch him. I shot and killed uggies and mouse droids whenever possible to take away his activations andswap fodder. My attack rolls were very good and if I got a shot on his Jedi I tended to hit more than I missed. I advanced the Quartermaster quickly to the Gambit zone as I knew he was free and he could perhaps deal some damage of his own. Face to face againt Revan and Bandon at various time he made at least 5 of 6 parry saves and when the game ended had only taken 40 points of damage. He was the MVP as he also was hitting them back with twin attacks and was hitting most all the time. I was shooting up Kun whenever he got near and still whittling away the small guys. Finally I killed Kun and felt like I had a chance. He had a 1/2health Revan and less than 1/2 health Bandon. I was down to a scout, Quartermaster, the Captain and Jereel. I mamaged to kill them off with careful poisitioning and shooting for a 3 point win. A lot of fun against a cool squad. 4-1 with 11 points.

Finals - Played Eric again and his IG squad. Won map rol this time knowing that I had a better chance on my map than on his Theed. He had not played my map he said and did not like it. We came to the center again and I this time used the Mando BH for his flamethrower 20 to at least make Eric not clump so much. Again killing his mouse droid blockers when I could while he tried to get off shots after out-activating me by plenty of activations. He brought in an extra IG this time. I had an early 4 shots to kill an IG and get an early lead and could not kill him. This was a theme to be played out the rest of the game. I missed more shots that I can ever remember and that would kill me. At one point I had 4 shots needing 1 to kill an IG-86 not in cover and missed all 4. MY one real shot to rattle him even with the bad rolls and take the lead was around round 4 or 5 and there was a single mouse droid in my way in frount of a clustered Lobot and 2 IG-86's one of which was 20 from death. I took I think 4 shots to kill the mouse and missed them. If I had hit and got rid of the mouse I had the bounty hunter around the corner who I would have sacrifices (he was free) and used flamethrower on Lobot killing him and an IG-86 and huritng the other one. I felt this would have totally changed the game and he would have had to be concerned and been behind for sure. Alas, was not to be and we fought it out with him continually using mouse droid swarms to block for him. We played to finsh and he finally finished off everyone.

Had a lot of fun and was happy that our Kokomo group played well. Dan J. went 3-2 with 9 points, Tony M. went 3-2 with 9 points, and Brian was 2-3 with 5 points. Thanks to the Michigan crew and to Brad for judging.

Rd 1 against Wali and his sep droidsHis mark 2 failed something like 3/5 saves and died way before it should have.Then MAster tactitian let me kill more stuff and then run around the corner. Maidenswere just too much and game was over fast.

Rd 2 vs Ben and his Sith PowerI had a nice line to open the game and got an early 60 on Revan. Then we danced around each other a little.A nice Sith sorcery by ben made it so I couldn't get anyone in position for shots for a round. He ended up letting me lock his Exar in a room and didn't have anyone set up well to transfer into. Then he made a key mistake wherehe forgot to run up his mouse and Revan so if he won init he could run around the corner and smack me. He ended up transfering exar outand then ran around and rolled a 1 on a handmaiden. With 2 handmaidens lined up to smoke Exar and none of the restof his pieces anyhwere close to positioned properly he conceded the game. It didn't help that he needed to use the restroom as well.

Rd 3 vs Stephen Johnson and his Han shot last squadThis is the one I feel the worst about. On throne room I took the turbolift side and he set up in the big room. Early in rd 1 I ran up and swapped an echani up so I could run around the cornerafter opening the door with R7 and get shots on stuff and hope he missed some evade saves. Did that and took out both his bothans. Echani made all saves so still had full health and then he locked the door again. I made him go first and then opened the door and got some damage on Han and killed something else (don'tremember what it was) then ran down the hall. Then he forgot to say he was moving 2 (his default was 1) and lobbed Hannext to the handmaiden. I didn't let him change it, then swapped in a new handmaiden and took out han and put damage on someone else. From there it was just cleanup as both his bothans and han were dead and I hadn't lost an echani yet.He did end up taking out one of them, but the game really turned on his forgetting to activate 2 (he changed his defaultto 2 later on in the day)

Rd 4 vs Eric and his droidsWon this game in about 2 seconds and then we played again with me helping/showing him how to win (really just need a muuntactics broker against an outactivated thrawn squad) and make sure the game doesn't go very many rounds.

Rd 5 vs Lou and his KybuckThis game was even except for 2 things. 1st he rolled a 1 on a gallop leaving the handmaiden he was going after alive which let yobuck eat 120 damage. 2nd I rolled a 1 for init which let quigon kill a handmaiden with no repurcussions. In the end the120 damage on Yobuck was worse for him than the 1 for init was for me and I outslugged him but didn't have much left (just thrawnmas, veers, and jabba as Atris killed yobuck as she died with riposte)

Semi-finals was Lou againKybuck struggles against this squad as he has to take out one of my tech pieces before he can start on the damage dealers becauseI am so mobile and the accurate means he can't hide very well. This game is also close but I do end the game with an Echani left as well as commanders/etc.

Finals vs Eric again (and now he knows how to win)Probably the most epic game I have played in a quite a while and definately the closest. He brings tactics broker and mice so the gameis on. there were 2 or 3 key moments in the game. one during the middle rounds eric spent a couple turns not really doing anything except treying to get better position and the tactics broker helped me out a lot in that aspect. two, at one point he missed 3/4 shots on thrawn needing 9s leaving thrawn at 10 left which let me move thrawn over to his lobot and hit him then win init and finish it off which leads to 3) I got my last echani locked in a room for 3 or so rounds. She didn't need to go in the room as eric had a line to her in the room as well just a mental mistake by me at that moment. This game came down to the wire withme having a 20hp echani, a damaged atris, and Jabba left at the end of the game.

Want to thank everyone from coming (had a lot of out of towners) and a special thanks to Brad for judging.

Hope everyone had a good time.

_________________When I left you I was but the learner . . . now I am the master.

Seeing this squad makes me want to go back and listen to the SHNN where Atris was previewed. I seem to recall a good bit of skepticism was expressed about basing a competitive squad around attackers with only 40hp. I'm certainly not downplaying the skill required to keep them alive, but all that accurate damage is just plain nasty.

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